Latest news with #MountSharp
Yahoo
8 hours ago
- Science
- Yahoo
NASA's Mars rover proves these peculiar ridges have secrets to tell
NASA's Curiosity rover has started drilling into a bizarre landscape on Mars that could upend assumptions about when the Red Planet truly dried out. After a long drive, the Mini Cooper-sized robot reached a so-called boxwork region, where a gridlike pattern of ridges splays over six to 12 miles. For years, orbiters had observed this area from space but never up close. Scientists had hypothesized before the rover arrived that the peculiar ridges formed with the last trickles of water in the region before it dried out for good. But mineral veins discovered in the boxwork suggest groundwater stuck around longer than anyone expected. The bedrock between the ridges contains tiny white veins of calcium sulfate, a salty mineral left behind as groundwater seeps into rock cracks. Deposits of the material were plentiful in lower rock layers from an earlier Martian period. But no one thought they'd appear in the layer Curiosity is exploring now, which formed much later. "That's really surprising," said Curiosity's deputy project scientist, Abigail Fraeman, in a statement. "These calcium sulfate veins used to be everywhere, but they more or less disappeared as we climbed higher up Mount Sharp. The team is excited to figure out why they've returned now." SEE ALSO: Rubin Observatory's first images flaunt millions of galaxies. Take a look. Ancient Mars used to be wetter — flush with rivers, lakes, and maybe even oceans — but over billions of years, it turned into a dusty, cold desert. What's unclear is when that shift happened and how long conditions suitable for life might have lingered. Curiosity's new findings complicate what scientists thought they knew about the timeline. The rover has spent more than a decade in Gale Crater climbing Mount Sharp, reading the rock layers like pages in a planetary chronicle. The layer it's on now is chock-full of magnesium sulfates, salty minerals that typically form as water evaporates. That fits the narrative researchers had expected: This was supposed to be a chapter when Mars was well on its way to arid. That's why a new sample Curiosity drilled this month, dubbed Altadena, could be enlightening. As the rover analyzes the boxwork's composition, scientists may gain a better understanding of how it formed, what minerals are present, and whether any clues about ancient single-celled microorganisms might be hidden there. The rover will drill more ridges in the coming months to compare them and evaluate how groundwater may have changed over time. Bedrock between the boxwork ridges contains tiny white veins of calcium sulfate. Credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / MSSS The mission's next targets lie farther into the boxwork region, where the patterns grow larger and more distinct. Curiosity will keep looking for organic molecules and other potential evidence of a habitable environment in Mars' ancient past. The rover team has begun nicknaming features after places near Bolivia's Salar de Uyuni, one of the driest, saltiest places on Earth. It's reminiscent of the Martian landscape Curiosity is sightseeing today. "Early Earth microbes could have survived in a similar environment," said Kirsten Siebach, a rover scientist based in Houston, in an earlier statement. "That makes this an exciting place to explore."
Fox News
3 days ago
- Science
- Fox News
NASA's Curiosity rover discovers unusual 'boxwork' patterns on Mars linked to ancient waterways
NASA's Curiosity rover is getting a firsthand look at a region on Mars previously only seen from orbit that features a "boxwork" pattern, along with evidence of ancient waterways, including rivers, lakes and maybe an ocean. New images and data from the Mars rover have already raised questions about how the red planet's surface was changing billions of years ago. Scientists are still unable, though, to answer why the planet's water eventually dried up and converted the surface into a chilly desert. Curiosity rover is in an area called Gale Crater, and evidence has shown that when it was formed, water was percolating under the surface. NASA said the rover had found evidence of groundwater in the crater when it encountered crisscrossing low ridges, some of which were only a few inches tall and were described by geologists as being arranged in a boxwork pattern. Beneath the ridges is bedrock scientists believe formed when groundwater trickled through the rock and left behind minerals that accumulated in the cracks and fissures. The minerals then hardened and became cement-like. The formations were worn away after what NASA called "eons of sandblasting" from Martian wind, though the minerals remained and revealed a network of resistant ridges within. Rover has already analyzed ridges that scientists say look more like a crumbling curb. But the patterns created over time stretch across miles of a layer on the 3-mile-tall Mount Sharp. The rover has been climbing the foothills of Mount Sharp since 2014, NASA said. What scientists also find interesting about the boxwork patterns is they have not been found anywhere else on the mountain by orbiters overhead or Curiosity. "A big mystery is why the ridges were hardened into these big patterns and why only here," said Curiosity project scientist Ashwin Vasavada of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California. "As we drive on, we'll be studying the ridges and mineral cements to make sure our idea of how they formed is on target." NASA said the patterns are found in a part of Mount Sharp formed during various eras of the ancient Martian climate. So, as the rover ascends from the oldest layers to the youngest, it is essentially time traveling and searching for signs that water existed on Mars and which environments would have supported microbial life in the planet's ancient times. "The rover is currently exploring a layer with an abundance of salty minerals called magnesium sulfates, which form as water dries up," NASA said. "Their presence here suggests this layer emerged as the climate became drier. "Remarkably, the boxwork patterns show that even in the midst of this drying, water was still present underground, creating changes seen today." Recent clues exposed on Mars may provide additional insight for scientists into why the boxwork patterns formed where they did. The bedrock between the ridges has a lot of tiny fractures filled with white veins of calcium sulfate, which is a salty mineral left behind when groundwater trickles through cracks in rocks, NASA said. In the lower layers of the mountain, similar veins were plentiful, and one was even enriched with clays. But, until now, none of the veins had been spotted in the sulfate. "That's really surprising," said Curiosity Deputy Project Scientist Abigail Fraeman of JPL. "These calcium sulfate veins used to be everywhere, but they more or less disappeared as we climbed higher up Mount Sharp. The team is excited to figure out why they've returned now." The Curiosity rover was launched Nov. 26, 2011, and landed on Mars Aug. 5, 2012. Its mission was to find out whether Mars ever had the right environmental conditions to support life, and, early on, the rover discovered chemical and mineral evidence of habitable environments from the past.
CBS News
4 days ago
- Science
- CBS News
Mars rover captures first close-up images of ridges that hint at planet's watery past in "really surprising" discovery
NASA's Curiosity rover has captured the first close-up images of a part of Mars that scientists say provide evidence of how water once flowed on the red planet. There were once rivers, lakes and possibly an ocean on Mars, but they eventually dried up and the planet became the desert it is currently, according to NASA. The new images by Curiosity show "dramatic evidence" of ancient groundwater in crisscrossing low ridges, arranged in "a boxwork pattern," stretching across miles of a mountain on Mars, the space agency said. "The bedrock below these ridges likely formed when groundwater trickling through the rock left behind minerals that accumulated in those cracks and fissures, hardening and becoming cementlike," NASA said in a news release. NASA's Curiosity rover took images of ridges that scientists think may have been formed by ancient groundwater. NASA The ridges look like spiderweb patterns from space and had previously only been observed from orbit, NASA said. "A big mystery is why the ridges were hardened into these big patterns and why only here," Curiosity's project scientist, Ashwin Vasavada, said. "As we drive on, we'll be studying the ridges and mineral cements to make sure our idea of how they formed is on target." The ridges have small fractures filled with calcium sulfate, left behind by groundwater, which had not been found before in this part of Mount Sharp, the 3-mile-tall mountain Curiosity is currently climbing, NASA said. "That's really surprising," said Curiosity's deputy project scientist, Abigail Fraeman. "These calcium sulfate veins used to be everywhere, but they more or less disappeared as we climbed higher up Mount Sharp. The team is excited to figure out why they've returned now." Curiosity landed in the planet's Gale Crater in 2012. It has been climbing the foothills of Mount Sharp since 2014, searching for signs of environments that could have supported life, according to NASA.
Digital Trends
13-06-2025
- Science
- Digital Trends
NASA's red planet rover shares a cool close-up of Mars mud
NASA's Curiosity rover has been tootling across the martian surface since 2012, its lofty quest to determine if Mars ever had environmental conditions suitable for microbial life. While it's already shared strong evidence that the red planet once had the right conditions for such a scenario, Curiosity continues to learn more about Mars through science expeditions that include drilling for rock samples that it then analyzes in its onboard laboratory. Recommended Videos On Thursday, the hardy rover shared a striking image (top and below) showing its latest drilling site, with the disturbed Mars mudstone appearing so close to the lens that you feel like you can almost reach out and touch it. Take a closer look and marvel at the astonishing detail present in the image, and then consider that it exists not on Earth but in a place currently some 180 million miles from where you're sat now. Meet 'Altadena,' my 43rd drill hole. It's named after a city near where I was built back on Earth. I've got more sampling to do as a I scale Mount Sharp, unraveling its history one rocky layer at a time. — Curiosity Rover (@MarsCuriosity) June 12, 2025 'Meet 'Altadena,' my 43rd drill hole,' Curiosity said in its post. 'It's named after a city near where I was built back on Earth. I've got more sampling to do as a I scale Mount Sharp, unraveling its history one rocky layer at a time.' The mudstone on Mars is a type of sedimentary rock formed from very fine particles of silt and clay that settled in ancient water bodies. It's essentially the remnants of ancient lakebeds, suggesting that Mars held liquid water for an extensive period a long time ago. Curiosity is conducting its work on Mount Sharp, which it's been exploring for much of its time on Mars. The feature is an 18,000-foot-high mountain in the middle of Gale Crater, and whose sedimentary layers, formed over billions of years, hold clues to Mars' watery past and potential habitability. Curiosity's mission was originally supposed to last no more than two years but was extended indefinitely after it successfully met its initial goals. In 2021, NASA landed the even more powerful Perseverance rover on Mars in a mission that complements the Curiosity rover by advancing the search for signs of ancient microbial life on the planet.
